Shelbourne’s appointment of John Russell as their new manager represents “shrewd business” from the club, according to former Republic of Ireland international Keith Treacy.<\/p>\n
Galway native Russell ends a four-year spell at Sligo Rovers, who he also lined out for during his playing career, and steps into the vacancy left by Joey O’Brien.<\/p>\n
Russell was confirmed as Shels manager on Monday morning<\/a> and will now be tasked with trying to push the 2024 SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division champions up the table as well as getting them off to a good start in the Club Orange Men’s FAI Cup and the Conference League qualifiers.<\/p>\n Reacting to the news on the RT\u00c9 Soccer Podcast<\/a>, former St Patrick’s Athletic and Drogheda United winger Treacy felt it was a good move from Shelbourne to bring in Russell.<\/p>\n “On the face of it, I think it’s a brilliant appointment,” he said.<\/p>\n \n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I think he’s done really well. I think he’s earned his chance. A lot of people were asking me, ‘Who would you fancy for that (job)?’<\/p>\n “And within League of Ireland terms, I was thinking Kevin Doherty is somebody at Drogheda United who’s done really, really well.<\/p>\n “I didn’t see John Russell moving away from Sligo, so he wasn’t even on my radar as going to Shelbourne. But I think it’s shrewd business.”<\/p>\n Treacy added that he was curious to see the style of play Russell will look to implement at Tolka Park, having looked to play progressive football at the Showgrounds.<\/p>\n “I remember having a chat with John, I think Rovers were playing Shelbourne in the Showgrounds, and I just had a chat with him in the middle of the pitch and we were talking about Sligo’s style of play,” he recalled.<\/p>\n “And I was trying to tell him, ‘Would you not be a little bit more attritional? You get caught in the middle of the park the odd time.’<\/p>\n “And he said, ‘Look, that’s our attraction. That’s how we get players to play for Sligo. We tell them we play football and we improve them as footballers.’<\/p>\n “It’s not all about winning at Sligo. At Shelbourne, it’ll be a different kettle of fish. There’s going to be an awful lot of pressure on them to win games of football.<\/p>\n “So I’m really interested to see is it a more football-based approach at Shelbourne? Is it going to be a little bit more attritional?<\/p>\n “Because under Damien Duff, they won the league and I wouldn’t class that as beautiful football that did that for Shelbourne.<\/p>\n “So they’re bringing in a manager who likes to play football. I think with the players that Shelbourne have – Jack Henry-Francis, Harry Wood – they’ve got good footballers in that team.<\/p>\n “So it’ll be really interesting. But on the face of it, on paper, it looks like a brilliant appointment and I’m delighted for John Russell. But I feel a little bit sick for Sligo, I have to be honest.”<\/p>\n The Bit o’ Red are in an on-field predicament, sitting bottom of the table after the late Connacht derby defeat to Galway United<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n “Everything just seems to be piling on. They seem to be as low as a snake’s belly and they just keep getting repeatedly kicked while they’re down,” Treacy said.<\/p>\n “It will go one or two ways. They’ll bring somebody in and maybe he can (get a) siege mentality, backs against the wall. ‘Everybody expects us to go down. Let’s have a bit about us.’<\/p>\n “There could be a reaction or there could be just an acceptance. And if there’s an acceptance, it’s never a good thing.<\/p>\n “I feel there are only so many times throughout the season you can go to the well and keep going and keep going, and losing the manager, a last minute defeat to Galway, it just feels like there’s a pummeling taken by Sligo at the minute.<\/p>\n “And like I say, I hope there’s a reaction in the positive sense, but I really can’t see it. And the way Waterford are going about it, it looks like that horse is just starting to bolt away.”<\/p>\n Watch every game of the FIFA 2026 World Cup live on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player with highlights on RT\u00c9 Sport digital platforms and live blogs on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n Watch Shamrock Rovers v Cork City in the Club Orange FAI Cup second round on Friday from 7.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shelbourne’s appointment of John Russell as their new manager represents “shrewd business” from the club, according to former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-547601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}